


knees weak but you talk pretty proud (wow)

by orangesicles



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Childhood Friends, First Kiss, M/M, Making up for lost time, Partying, lots of stupid metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangesicles/pseuds/orangesicles
Summary: yeonjun wets his lips again. this time, it seems conscious. he exhales, and it's shaky, tremors wracking through his shoulders, and he dips down a little closer, just enough so that taehyun can make out specks of gold mixed into the browns of his eyes."want to kiss you," he finishes, "if that's okay.""okay," taehyun's head shifts, cocked to the side just so.okay.or, taehyun and yeonjun were childhood friends. they meet up again at a college party after not having spoken in years, and the rest is so very easy.
Relationships: Choi Yeonjun/Kang Taehyun
Comments: 25
Kudos: 183





	knees weak but you talk pretty proud (wow)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in two-ish days. very roughly beta'd. title is from conan gray's 'i wish you were sober' because it's been stuck in my head since yesterday.
> 
> edit: changed 'kismet' to 'fate' because of its religious connotations!
> 
> edit edit: changed the summary because i wasn't happy with it😓

there is something heavy in the air, stifling and weighty like a thick, wool blanket. it's too hot for such a thing this time of year, mid august when the air is so humid you feel it in the bends of your arms and the creases of your fingers. it's the bad kind of hot, the bad kind of suffocating, the bad kind of  _ everything.  _ taehyun is not a party person, is not a loud music, skip-study-nights kind of person, and he's got a headache. he's been here less than ten minutes. the music is obnoxious and poppy, and his t-shirt clings to his skin as he pushes through a mass of people, looking for someone– anyone– he might know.

kai was supposed to be here. he'd been the one to invite him,  _ promised  _ with his pointer finger drawing a cross over his heart that he would find taehyun and they'd spend the entire night together. but he's nowhere to be seen, and nowhere to be heard, and if he were anywhere close, taehyun is  _ sure  _ he would have heard him. he's got a laugh that rings like a hollowed bell. impossible to miss.

he pulls his phone out of his pocket to shoot him a text, and then makes for the kitchen. he needs alcohol.

there's nothing besides vodka and fizzy punch, and he wonders who the hell put together something like this, with the shit music and the shittier alcohol and the people. all of the goddamn people. they're hardly two weeks into school  _ (get plastered on a saturday night to celebrate),  _ and taehyun imagines this is going to be a lot of college kid's weekends for a very long time.

it's his second year at this university. kai's first. the younger man's already got more friends than him, somehow. it's not as surprising as it is plain sad.

taehyun had almost started university a year early, having finished high school ahead of the other kids his age. but money had been an issue, saving to move, and so he'd gotten a job at a clothing distribution center and spent three hundred and sixty-five days working graveyard shifts. it had been an awful year, like paddling a boat with a gaping hole in the side, watching everyone else watch him drown. 

he feels a lot better than he had back then. he studies his ass off as a way of paying thanks to the scholarship he'd managed to snag, and works part-time so that he can afford his share of the rent every month. living in an apartment is a hell of a lot better than sharing a dorm, and his roommate, beomgyu, isn't too bad. he's loud, sometimes, and stays up too late playing guitar. but taehyun thinks he smiles awfully pretty, and likes that the conversation between them is never forced. 

his phone buzzes in his back pocket, and he pulls it out so fast it almost clatters to the dirty, tiled floor. 

**_kai:_ **

_ 9:42pm: _ srry got caught up in some stuff

_ 9:42pm: _ on my way there now

_ 9:43pm: _ i'm bringing gyu along! he changed his mind n decided he wanted to come last minute -.-

taehyun sighs, telling himself not to just– freak out. he's his own person without kai, they'd only just met two years ago at a community picnic, but he often doesn't remember  _ how  _ to be, especially in unfamiliar environments. he is not social, not outgoing in the way that his friend is, and he struggles to keep up any sort of conversation so much so that he's just stopped trying to make friends in general. his mother once told him that he must've been born a forty-year old man. he feels the age in the marrow of his bones.

he forgoes the alcohol. vodka isn't his drink of choice, fucks him up  _ way  _ too fast, and the last thing he needs is kai dragging him home, brand new white shoes scraping the filthy pavement as they go. he spent half a paycheck on these things. regrets it now, but he lost the receipt and can't return them. kai says they look good on him, but he says a lot of things, and what does he know, anyway? he wears the same four pairs of sweatpants interchangeably every week.

he exits the kitchen, and pushes through the living room. it's loudest there, and the four walls jitter as if they are throbbing with the beat of the music. he sees a few people from some of his classes and they see him, but they don't  _ really.  _ and he smiles politely, but it's empty, and they smile right back, and he forgets what color their eyes are the second he looks away. it's all pretense; all come and go, and he makes for the stairs, takes them two at a time just to get away from the people he almost knows. 

it's much quieter on the second floor. all of the lights are off besides the bathroom, door half cracked. there's a couple inside, pretty girl and handsome boy, and they're kissing against the counter, mirror all steamed up behind them. taehyun's unsure of where his hands end and hers begin, with the way that they're so tangled up in each other. they're smiling against each other's mouths, sort of giggling softly. in love, probably. or rather, they think they are. he looks away and keeps walking, pressing two fingers against his solar plexus as he goes. 

the door at the very end of the hall opens into a bedroom. it's pretty small, messy with clothes thrown here and there, but there's just enough moonlight shining in through two tiny windows to reveal a very comfortable looking, empty bed. and he doesn't care that this isn't his home, doesn't give a damn that he's at a party where he should be  _ mingling,  _ because the music sucks and the drinks are in poor taste, and he's tired. he's always tired.

he lies down on the mattress spread-eagle, staring at the ceiling. there's a fan, whirring so fast it makes him dizzy just looking at it. he closes his eyes. with the music muted and distant, it's easier to breathe, and he feels good. warm, but not overly so anymore. he breathes in the smell of the sheets (linen), and watches as moonbeams filter in through half open, bent blinds, illuminating the dust particles that are floating about through the air, riding room temperature waves. for the first time in a long, long while, he feels like he can exist peacefully.

he's three-quarters of the way asleep, phone ringer turned up incase kai calls, when the bedroom door swings back, knob smacking against the wall with a little  _ pop.  _ his eyes crease open, slow and steady, and he props himself on his elbows, squinting at the figure in the doorway. it's too dark to make out any facial features, but their hair is dyed an obnoxious yellow, and taehyun snorts. it's an awful color. the moonlight only accentuates it. 

"who is that?" the figure calls out. a boy, with a rounded sort of voice, kind of soft around the edges, like he might be wanting to hide its gentleness from the world. "soobin?"

"not soobin," taehyun answers because he's not. he sits up, knees pulled to his chest. "sorry, just– wanted some quiet. is this your room?"

the boy shakes his head. "no, it's not. i'm looking for soobin."

"well he isn't here."

"huh," the stranger pops his lips. "you okay?"

at this, taehyun swings his legs over the side of the bed, shoes pressing to the floor. he's okay– maybe– but he's not sure why this guy wants to know. if he weren't (and he sometimes isn't), it's not like he would say as much. he is not the  _ say what you mean _ type unless it directly benefits him. he is selfish and wanton, and he does not  _ care  _ about strangers. (beomgyu thinks he's a liar. beomgyu thinks he's got a big heart, but beomgyu is full of wanderlust. he's a romantic even when he shouldn't be.)

"i'm okay," taehyun says, and then, "why are you asking?"

"you've hijacked some stranger's bed in the middle of a party. no  _ okay  _ person would do something like that."

music is steadily filtering in from downstairs. the same band has played the last three songs in a row, some god awful indie rock group with a lead singer that can't actually sing. taehyun almost tells the boy to close the door. in or out, stay or go. he doesn't want to remember that he's at a party. doesn't even want to remember that he's awake right now. 

instead, he lets himself fall back against the bed, stack of cushions soft beneath his back, and closes his eyes.

the door shuts with a quiet  _ click  _ a moment later. taehyun thinks the stranger has left, until the overhead light clicks on, and the room is shrouded in yellow. he flinches, hand covering his eyes. 

"'s too bright," he huffs. "why'd you do that?"

there is only quiet. the room feels as if it is vibrating steadily, thrumming, like someone has shucked a needle into its foundation and is feeding it shockwaves, and the stranger who shut the door is incredibly– silent. taehyun still hasn't opened his eyes. he wonders if this is a red flag situation; if he needs to clamber for his phone and shoot kai a text.  _ if you don't hear from me in fifteen minutes, call the cops.  _ can't trust anyone nowadays. 

and then there's a footstep, hushed, and the clicking of someone's throat as they swallow.

the boy murmurs, "taehyun, is that you?"

his eyes fly open.  _ oh.  _ not a stranger, then. just someone who might as well be.

"yeonjun?"

the bed dips down as yeonjun perches on the end of it, seemingly hesitant to come too close, movements slow like he's been dipped in honey. perhaps he's scared of frightening taehyun away, cautious like a hunter with a shotgun strapped to his back approaching an unsuspecting deer. he's dangerous.

"oh my god," breathes yeonjun, and christ, that yellow hair is still awful, but it's better now that taehyun knows that it's  _ him.  _ yeonjun could pull off anything back when they were kids, and still can, apparently. always the cool one, the child the neighborhood kids looked up to fiercely, with little sparks in their eyes. yeonjun mostly ignored them, not one to be fawned over, but he'd seen taehyun in the crowd, bouncing on the heels of his worn tennis shoes, and had taken a liking to him. took him under his wing.

"i haven't seen you since my middle school graduation. the picnic at the park, remember?" he continues, and taehyun nods. he does remember. the middle school children were meant to be celebrating what was to come; big bad high school, dark and foreboding, but yeonjun and taehyun were mourning. barely ate anything at all at the picnic. 

"you moved away that summer," taehyun says. he still isn't sure if this is entirely real, if yeonjun is here, or if this is some sick illusion his brain has conjured up out of nowhere. he hasn't even thought about yeonjun in years if he's honest, but  _ god,  _ he's kicking himself for it. he looks almost exactly the same. more handsome now, but that was always going to come with age. 

"you go to college around here?" yeonjun asks.

taehyun nods. "yeah. local university, scholarship."

"shit. what are the odds? coincidence, i guess."

_ or fate. _

this is weird. everything about this is weird, from the way that yeonjun sort of leans in when he speaks, eyes crescent and shiny, just like they were when he'd listen to taehyun talk and talk after school as they'd walk home together. they lived in the same housing development, two doors down. he is like a carbon copy of the young boy from back then, only now he's got broad shoulders and full lips, and piercings that go all the way around his ears. his smile is still the same, starting at the corner of his mouth and working its way up. blooming. 

"you've grown so much, taehyun," yeonjun says. "you used to be– tiny, with these big eyes, and shaky hands. you were scared of everything."

taehyun's chest swells. he remembers. he used to get picked on a lot, the smallest kid in his grade, and the smartest, too, with an interest in science that would take him a hell of a lot of places. people are afraid of things that are different, and threatened by what they do not know. he got pushed around one too many times, kicked in the ribs and bruised on the mouth, until he decided that he could just make it  _ stop happening.  _ yeonjun used to protect him from the bullies. when he moved away, they got meaner. but so did taehyun.

"you don't look scared anymore," yeonjun says, so soft taehyun almost misses it, words lilting between empty syllables carried in from the music downstairs. "hyunie's all grown up."

taehyun squeezes his eyes shut. feels something sharp pierce his sternum and crack straight through his chest, splitting him wide open. gaping for the world to see.  _ hyunie.  _ kai calls him that sometimes, and beomgyu, too. but there is something in the way yeonjun pronounces it so delicately, like it's wrapped around the expanse of his tongue and exhaled in a cloud of graying smoke, uniquely pretty. it's been so long since taehyun's heard anyone say it that fondly, and it  _ aches  _ deep. it hurts.

"tell me about yourself," he says just to say something, to occupy his racing mind, to think about anything else at all. he opens his eyes slowly. "tell me about your life, after you moved."

yeonjun hums, falling backwards onto the bed, arms crossed behind his head. he's still at the opposite end, nearing the edge, but he doesn't make to move any closer. he seems to know his boundaries.

"the high school i transferred to was small," he says, "a private school."

yeonjun's parents have money. taehyun's always known that. newest cars in the seemingly too-small driveway, giant pool in the backyard, trampoline with the net. rumors were that his mom used to be a famous musician in the states, but that she went by a different name back then. taehyun's not sure there is any truth behind them, but he had always wondered where the wealth came from. 

"it was an all boys kind of thing, stuffy uniforms and too-tight ties. hated it there," yeonjun huffs. he sounds genuinely put off, and when taehyun glances over at him, head turned just so, he sees that he's got this cute little pout playing at his lips. so that hasn't changed either, then. "but it's what my parents wanted for me. and they promised that if i went along with it, that if i did well and didn't complain too much, they'd give me complete freedom in deciding what college i went to."

"and did they?" taehyun asks.

yeonjun smiles. "yeah. got into my first choice school."

"smartass," taehyun teases. he's smiling now too, and he wonders when that happened. he hadn't noticed at first. it's something that feels too foreign on his face, cheeks sort of aching with the intensity of it. 

yeonjun snorts. "says you. you've been brilliant since you were  _ born,  _ probably. never had to work for the grades a day in your life, did you?"

taehyun doesn't answer that. yeonjun is mostly right, and the silence says it all.

"honestly," the older man keeps going, "i coasted. didn't make many friends, though friends sure made  _ me.  _ i just wanted to get out, to go somewhere i loved, and be happy. i hadn't felt happy since middle school."

_ since before you moved away,  _ taehyun thinks.  _ since before you moved away from me. _

there's something to be said about childhood friendships. finicky things that can bend and snap just as easily as they can form. one stolen eraser or accidental broken toy soils everything, but one pinky promise makes it all better. taehyun and yeonjun had made a lot of those near the pond behind yeonjun's old house, always right as the sun was going down.  _ promise to sneak an extra cookie in your lunchbag tomorrow so that i can have one, too. promise to ask your mom if i can spend the night. promise to never, ever forget me. _

taehyun's broken a lot of promises since he was a child. the guilt fades over time, but never truly goes away. yeonjun is proof of that in all that he is; pretty and bright, very real, and very much  _ here.  _ a reminder of what he threw away.

"what about you, hyunie?" the older man asks, breaking him out of his thoughts. "what have you been up to?"

taehyun spends a long moment trying to decide if it is pitiful to just tell the truth, to say that he has been up to absolutely nothing. nothing worth talking about, anyway. there was saving up to move away, and then there was the actual moving. there was meeting kai, just before that, and then beomgyu. and these days, there is studying, working shifts around his class schedule, and coffee he really, actually can't afford. occasional caesar salad bowls too, though kai usually buys him those.

there is the way sometimes, every so often, wind gets lodged in his throat and makes a home there, sort of circling around until it pipes out his vocal chords completely. and there is crying himself to sleep, usually on tuesday nights for no reason other than the fact beomgyu spends every tuesday with his boyfriend, and taehyun gets the apartment all to himself. can cry and cry and cry until his throat bleeds raw, and his pillow sops with saltwater tears. 

he doesn't say any of this. instead, he turns over so that he's on his side, and looks curiously at yeonjun. his nose slopes delicately from this angle.

"you stopped writing," he murmurs lowly. yeonjun's face shifts, changes into something that taehyun can't read, eyes falling shut. "i wrote to you every single week, for months. and you just..stopped one day."

the room ebbs and flows, moonbeams shifting every so often in a way that is floaty and foreign. the ceiling fan kicks dust as it goes. and taehyun's brain sets off fireworks in the darkest corners where the light doesn't quite reach, as yeonjun sinks into the bed and drowns in the quiet.

"it wasn't an easy decision for me to make," he says, eventually, words kind of stamped down into the mattress as he turns to look taehyun in the eye. "i was fifteen, and sad, and  _ scared.  _ and writing to you just reminded me of everything that i had lost, everything that i had to miss."

_ it was painful,  _ taehyun forces himself to take a deep breath, pressing the palm of his hand against his sternum, hard.  _ it was as painful for him as it was for me.  _

there is something low in the corners of yeonjun's eyes, seeping into the browns of his irises almost as if it has lived there forever. and taehyun doesn't know much about working out feelings, but he knows what desolation looks like, sees it in the etches of his frown lines every goddamn day when he stares red-faced in the bathroom mirror, and he  _ hates  _ the way it looks on yeonjun, ugly and protruding, like a horn that has grown and grown until it can no longer be hidden beneath strands of hair. he reaches out to wipe it away without even thinking. his thumb sweeps the curve of yeonjun's cheekbone.

their fingers link together, the next second. taehyun finds himself trying to remember how to breathe.

"you were my best friend," says yeonjun, and he sounds like he means it.

"and you were mine," taehyun tells him.

the light in this room is good. blue, and muted. he looks down at their hands, fingers locked, and sees blue veins beneath yeonjun's cooled skin.  _ blue is a good color,  _ he thinks distantly, and then,  _ blue is a good color on him,  _ like poppy blooming wildly in the confines of his wrist. the sunlight kisses there, somehow, more often than it should, and the flowers sprout and grow, unmanageable and oh so vivid.  _ if you could live in the soil, twined between masses of wildflowers,  _ he thinks,  _ this is what it would feel like.  _

"you avoided my question," yeonjun's lips purse, knowing sort of twinkle in his eye. "what have you been doing since i left, hyunie?"

_ absolutely nothing. god, i have been waiting for you to come back, only i didn't know that i was. see; i dreamt about you but couldn't really remember your face. see; i tasted your mother's freshly baked cookies in the boxed ones that beomgyu and i made, but couldn't figure out why. see; i never stopped wondering about you, until i did.  _

"just school," he answers, slated. "and work. i live in an apartment off campus with a friend."

"just a friend?" yeonjun's eyebrows lift, though only slightly. curious, but not overly so, like he knows he doesn't really have a right to be after all this time.

"beomgyu," taehyun grins, "is the most obnoxious person i have ever met. he leaves all of the lights in the place on constantly, and then whines about the ridiculous utility bills. he's got this awful habit of leaving dirty clothes hanging over the couch in the living room, and he's a hug-before-bed kind of guy. and he's my friend. good friend, probably."

this is the first time taehyun has ever really talked about beomgyu aloud with anyone besides kai, and definitely the first time he's acknowledged the fact that their roommateship might've turned into something closer to a friendship a long time ago. and it feels good, to say it, to breathe it into the air. beomgyu is the kind of boy who deserves to be loved loudly, who should be allowed to have everything that he wants. taehyun is not silly enough to disregard that.

yeonjun looks at him for a moment and then smiles. he closes his eyes as he does, like he might want taehyun to parrot him, like he doesn't want the younger man to see. what a funny little flaw, to want to hide something so beautiful.

"beomgyu sounds like a cool guy," he remarks. "would love to meet him one day."

_ oh,  _ taehyun exhales carefully, ribs creaking to break, he'd almost forgotten that this is  _ real.  _ yeonjun is here, is very much the same, and he lives close now (presumably, considering he's at a college party). he'll want to integrate himself back into taehyun's life, maybe, and taehyun will let him because he's not felt this whole since he quit his job back home before running off to the city. this is the kind of feeling he wants to keep around for a very long time, tucked in a heart-shaped locket sat gentle against his chest, licking at the curves of his collarbones. 

"you could come over for dinner. beomgyu is a  _ shit  _ cook, and i'm no better, but kai can throw down when he really wants to. he makes this pasta wrap that should be illegal considering he mixes together the most fucked up ingredients, but it always turns out amazing. and he loves playing host. likes to pretend that our apartment is his apartment, and for all it's worth, it kind of is."

"now who's kai?" yeonjun laughs, giggles breathless and warm. "you've got so many friends, i can't keep up."

taehyun snorts.  _ "two.  _ i only have two friends."

"doing better than me," yeonjun tells him, deadly serious. "i've only got soobin."

"no way," the younger man scoffs, "that's impossible. everyone loved you back in middle school, and i'm sure it's the same now."

yeonjun shrugs like that's neither here nor there, staring off at the wall behind taehyun's head, a sort of far away look in his eye.

"there are people who want to be around me," he starts slowly, "and then there are people who consider me  _ their  _ friend. but i've only got one friend– one person  _ i  _ call friend– and that's soobin."

taehyun blinks once, twice, a little bit curious. 

"tell me about this  _ soobin,"  _ he says.

and so yeonjun does. pretty boy he met his first year of university, sort of clumsily. they'd run into each other coming and going from the library, mostly because soobin  _ forgets that he has feet, sometimes,  _ yeonjun says. and it had kind of been instant friendship. soobin was shy, still is, somewhat, and yeonjun is very much  _ not,  _ and there was something about their dynamic that just clicked right away. yeonjun says they plan on getting an apartment together next year because they'll both be graduating and it just makes sense. soobin is the kind of person who likes for things to make sense. yeonjun says he couldn't care less, either way. 

"if you introduce me to soobin," taehyun says, after he's finished speaking, "i'll introduce you to kai and beomgyu. and then you'll have three more friends, and you won't have to be so lonely anymore."

"but kai and beomgyu are only two people, hyunie," yeonjun teases, "has your genius brain expanded so much you've forgotten how to do simple mathematics? where'd you get three from?"

and taehyun is not naive enough to think that things are so clear cut, but he knows what he wants now that he remembers what he had, and finds himself yearning to seek it out, to keep it  _ close,  _ to keep it warm. 

so he says, "me, dummy. i'm the third person," and hopes that yeonjun sees the want clinging tight to the jut of his bottom lip.

the older man scoots a bit closer on the bed, and it's only then that taehyun remembers they've not stopped holding hands since they started. it's hot tonight, stifling in the bedroom, and he's clammy and sticky and embarrassed, maybe, but yeonjun just holds on tighter, squeezing as his thumb strokes the sensitive skin along the inside of his wrist. 

"okay," he breathes, fragile, head tilting back just a little. the curve of his neck is pretty (everything about him is pretty pretty pretty), and taehyun swallows, throat clicking dryly as he does. "there's something different about you, taehyun."

perhaps there is.  _ surely  _ there is, actually. you don't spend the majority of your teenage years fighting the urge to snuff out whatever flame still exists beneath you only to stay the same person you'd been then. growing and evolving, adapting, is the only thing that taehyun is, without a doubt, good at. and he thinks maybe that's just a  _ human  _ thing, like maybe the world is so fucked up and wrong that people have no choice but to try and adjust to it, lest they be buried beneath all of the ugly entirely. 

taehyun is never sure what to say anymore, is never sure of himself, but he looks at yeonjun for the first time all night and really  _ sees  _ him, all vivid colors and high contrast and bright,  _ bright  _ yellow. and when he lifts two fingers to his own neck and presses over his pulse point, it thrums so fast he thinks his heart might be trying to make a quick escape from his body, like it's grown wings that beat almost as fast a hummingbird's. he tells it,  _ stay right where you are,  _ with a hand pushed against his solar plexus.  _ you are not allowed to leave just yet. _

yeonjun jumps into a story about a song he wrote with an acquaintance forever ago, and how it's still a little rough around the edges, a diamond in the making that just needs a bit of love. he tells taehyun of the kinds of music that he listens to, and the kinds of music that he writes, and about how he desperately wants to learn how to play piano but can't afford lessons at the moment. taehyun hadn't even known he was into music, but he supposes he shouldn't be too surprised. there's a disconnect between them, gaps of years that are missing, and yeonjun is not twelve years old with a bowl cut and an obsession with barbeque chips anymore.

he's passionate about singing, and rapping, and producing. when he talks about it, his eyes go all big, and his hands lift up up up, and drop down again, the one still linked with taehyun's all the while. taehyun can't stop looking at him, can't stop smiling so much so that his cheeks  _ ache,  _ and it isn't until yeonjun reaches out with his pointer finger to press into the hollow of his lone dimple that he realizes just how  _ happy  _ he is.

"you may have gotten bigger, taller," yeonjun starts,  _ "broader.  _ but that dimple has not changed one bit. it still takes up half your cheek-"

taehyun pouts. "hey!"

"-and it's the cutest thing i've ever seen, to this day. swear to god," he finishes, beaming bright and dewy.

"i'm self conscious about it," taehyun tells him, honestly.

"i don't know why," yeonjun shakes his head as best he can manage while lying down. "you're breathtaking."

taehyun snorts before he can help it, the compliment catching him off guard, and the sound makes yeonjun cackle this weird, throaty laughter that pings off of the corners of the room and bounces back around to settle low in the pit of taehyun's belly. it's so strange how  _ easy  _ this is, like they were apart for years, forgot the sounds of each other's voices, and then somehow melded back together like no time had passed at all. yeonjun's got this half goofy look about him when he's trying to hold back his giggles, cheeks all puffed up like a squirrel's, and taehyun's eyes water with tears– the good kind, this time– as he watches him lightheartedly, words unforced between them.

"i mean it though," yeonjun assures after he's calmed down, only the inklings of a smile left lingering around, "you're all grown up now. you were always cute as a kid, tiny and  _ perfect-" _

_ "yeonjun-" _

"but you've grown into your big features," the older man continues. "so, so handsomely."

taehyun's face feels hot and angry and red, tips of his ears surely matching, and he turns to bury himself in the pillow beneath his head to stave off the wave of embarrassment as best he can. it only half works, because yeonjun lets go of his hand only to run his fingers through taehyun's messy, dark brown hair, sweeping it back from his forehead, cooing at him like one might a baby, or a cute animal.

"you're annoying," taehyun bites. there's no malice behind his words.

yeonjun laughs, bubbling up deep from inside his chest. "soobin tells me that all the time."

"maybe he's onto something."

"hey, watch it," a gentle finger jabs at his ribcage, and taehyun yelps, ticklish there. "i'm your elder. show some respect."

the younger man lifts his head, too-big smile stretching his cheeks. yeonjun gets this deadly look in his eye that is just  _ way  _ too funny, and taehyun laughs without really meaning to.

"don't you dare make a jab at my age."

"if i do," taehyun giggles, "you will have deserved it."

"hey do you think," yeonjun props himself up on his elbows, hair sweeping his forehead, just past his eyebrows, "we should head back downstairs? we're just hanging out in someone's bedroom, and anyone could walk in."

"no one has yet," taehyun shrugs. he pulls his phone from his pocket to check his missed messages– for the first time at a party, he's  _ willingly  _ neglected the device– and sees a couple of texts from kai, all back to back, like he typed them in quick succession and then forgot to follow up.

**_kai:_ **

_ 11:57pm:  _ hey i'm here finally lol

_ 11:57pm:  _ where r u??

_ 11:58pm:  _ assuming u either 1) got shitfaced and passed out somewhere or 2) went home. text me and let me know ur ok when u see these!!!! >.<

taehyun shakes his head, thumbs flying across the keyboard just to appease him.

**_me:_ **

_ 12:21am:  _ i'm safe

_ 12:21am:  _ catching up with an old friend

he tucks his phone away, slides it into his pocket, and lies on his back to watch the ceiling fan overhead. spinning, spinning, quiet  _ whirs  _ slipping into the room, so quiet their breathing almost covers them completely. 

he doesn't look at yeonjun as he asks, "you getting bored with me up here?"

"no," the answer comes almost immediately, "just don't want to keep you."

taehyun scoffs. "from what? bad music and punch that like, at least fifteen people have probably dipped their fingers in by now?"

"not a party kind of person, i see," yeonjun chuckles. he's lying on his side, one elbow on the bed with his cheek pressed into the palm of his hand. taehyun can feel his eyes on the side of his face, pressing. 

"that obvious, huh?"

the older man hums. "what are you doing here, then?"

"kai," taehyun muses, "has a way of convincing me to tag along with him pretty much anywhere."

"you like him?" yeonjun asks as time dredges on. "kai, i mean."

"'course i do," taehyun says, easy. like the wind blows. like flowers blossom. "he's my best friend."

"you know what i mean," yeonjun insists, only taehyun  _ doesn't.  _ "you like him as more than a friend?" 

and oh,  _ oh,  _ he'd not really considered that it might come off that way, didn't really think that it did, but he supposes he does talk about kai an awful lot. and maybe he's thought about kissing him (kai's got these wonderfully pink, thin lips), but it's never stemmed into anything more than just  _ thinking,  _ and he's not sure it ever will. their relationship is simple in the way that it sort of floats, dormant, nice and easy, like the waves just before high tide. they've never pushed the limits, never tried anything skirting the edges of romance because they don't feel like they  _ need  _ to. 

so he shakes his head. offers a gentle smile. "no. he's just– we're friends."

they fall back into the kind of quiet that is undemanding, so keen to just let them exist within it. and the party still carries on, people downstairs squealing with laughter. taehyun imagines their shoulders shaking with mirth, faceless bodies sloshing cups of alcohol around as they dance in the crowded living room. he's sure kai is down there– and beomgyu too– playing beer pong, or hassling for the bluetooth speaker to play one of their favorite songs. they were born to live this kind of life; to have fun, and never worry about the full picture. taehyun envies them.

if he closes his eyes and lets himself sink into the mattress, cool air from the ceiling fan swooshing his hair out of his face, he imagines water. he wades around in it, knee-deep, seeping into his brand new sneakers, dirtying them up. and it's cold, fucking icy to the very core, and he's long since forgotten what it means to have feeling in his toes. this kind of numbness is immaculate at drawing him in, wrapping anchors round his wrists until he inevitably sinks. it's hard to ignore the water when he resides in it almost constantly. god knows he's never been a great swimmer to begin with. 

but yeonjun reaches out, cool fingertips pressing to the cut of his cheekbone, and he startles. resurfaces, catches a breath full of fresh air, and expels saltwater from his lungs. there's this– this lifesaver, right in front of him, and all he's got to do is grab hold. just shuck off the anchors. that's all he has to do.

he's not sure that he can. and then yeonjun's hand splays, fingers spreading out across the curve of his jaw, sliding down to rest against the side of his neck, and he thinks,  _ might as well die trying. _

"i haven't quite convinced myself that you're real just yet," yeonjun confides.

"i very much am," taehyun tells him, hand coming up to envelop the one the older man's got on his neck. "but i get why you might still be in disbelief."

yeonjun quirks an eyebrow. "oh, you do?"

taehyun nods, teasing smile tugging at the corners of his cherry red mouth. "yeah. 'm just so  _ breathtaking,  _ right?"

"you punk," yeonjun rolls across the bed in the time it takes for taehyun to rear his head back and laugh too loud, and then there's a set of hands in his hair, knuckles rubbing against his scalp in a way that only kind of burns, and he giggles as yeonjun looms over him all broad shoulders and pretty, rounded lips. "you're exactly as i remember;  _ mean." _

_ "you _ do this," taehyun rolls his eyes playfully, snagging hold of yeonjun's wrists. his hands fit the entire way around. he's got long fingers– beomgyu's always told him so. "you like, set yourself up. it's hard  _ not  _ to make fun of you."

"gonna beat you up," yeonjun declares, and they squirm around for a bit, swatting impishly at each other here and there, until somehow the older man's thighs bracket taehyun's tiny waist, and they just kind of sit still, like cement's been poured around them, leaving them stuck in this singular position forever.

they stare at each other for a beat  _ (beat beat,  _ go the hummingbird's wings).

yeonjun is pretty from this angle (is pretty all the time, taehyun is starting to realize), with his hair whooshing in front of his deep, brown eyes, pink-cheeked, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. it's sort of silly that they've lived in the same area for a couple of years, probably go to universities that are very close to each other, or maybe even attend the  _ same  _ one, yet hadn't run into each other before tonight. it's like the universe came up with it's own little plan, waiting until taehyun had had a taste of rock bottom, and then dipped his finger into the bitter-sweet along the middle. with yeonjun leaning over him, body weight pressing so nicely against taehyun's abdomen, thighs boxing him in on either side, the surface is in view. if he reaches out, he might be able to touch it. 

he wants to try.

yeonjun shifts above him, and taehyun's back bows just the tiniest bit, subconsciously yearning to get closer. 

he pauses. "you're not gonna beat me up. you would never."

"you're right," yeonjun concedes. he's got this look in his eye that sings of warmth, bellows comfort, and taehyun's lashes flutter against his cheeks as he stares and stares. "can i– i want to-"

"want to what, yeonjun?" the younger man presses. he is never bold. but tonight, decidedly, he's got nothing to lose. 

yeonjun wets his lips again. this time, it seems conscious. he exhales, and it's shaky, tremors wracking through his shoulders, and he dips down a little closer, just enough so that taehyun can make out specks of gold mixed into the browns of his eyes.

"want to kiss you," he finishes, "if that's okay."

"okay," taehyun's head shifts, cocked to the side just so.  _ okay. _

yeonjun leans down so slow, movements dipped in molasses, that taehyun feels like he's lived a thousand lives by the time their lips meet. when they do, carefully, slotting together wet and smooth and easy, he makes a pained little noise in the back of his throat. burning up from the inside out.  _ rekindling. _

the kiss is something that almost isn't a kiss with how soft it is, barely there pressure that taehyun opens up to like a flower waning towards the sun. he's not stupid enough to pretend this means more than it does, but that doesn't make him any less wanton. yeonjun is a sight for sore eyes, beautiful even when he's not supposed to be, when his nose scrunches up with laughter, or when his cheeks swell as he holds his breath, like he's waiting for something. they kiss with the kind of care someone might have when cleaning glass, careful not to add to the stress fractures that already exist. and taehyun is so very okay with being treated like a fragility until he's not anymore; until yeonjun's hands slide into his hair, and he blacks out.

yeonjun's lips are puffy, soft like he probably coats them with chapstick a dozen times a day, and taehyun's enamored quicker than he's got any right to be. he arches his neck, twists so that he can press forward, can get a better angle, and yeonjun leans in further to accommodate. he gives a gentle tug to taehyun's hair, just testing the waters, and when taehyun moves into it, whining slightly, he does it again and again, over and over, until the younger man struggles to catch his breath.

they separate after a moment, just for a second, long enough that taehyun gets a good look at yeonjun's flushed cheeks, tips of his ears tinted cotton candy pink.  _ god,  _ he thinks,  _ god, this is going to kill me. this is going to kill me, and i will let it. _

it's like the sea, tugging with this indescribable intensity, swooping low in the bottom of taehyun's belly as he surges forward, pushing himself up on his elbows, and kisses yeonjun once more. it's slow, slow, slow, deep tides rolling in, gutting the shore of all it's got, and then it's suddenly  _ not  _ anymore. it is yeonjun's hands on the sides of his face, sort of squishing his cheeks together as he pulls him  _ closer.  _ it is a tongue, prodding at his bottom lip, slipping inside until he's forced to swallow noises erupting from the back of his throat because he can't just bite them back anymore, and it's the giggle yeonjun exhales against his tongue, breathy and low and just there, in the moment. just coasting. 

he grabs fistfulls of yeonjun's t-shirt, keeping him as close as he possibly can for as long as he can, and his phone is buzzing incessantly, chiming  _ ding ding ding!  _ from his pocket, but he doesn't care. tunes it out for the time being, because there is an entire fucking tsunami growing in his chest, and he can do nothing but pry his ribcage apart with his bare hands and let it spill out, taking the entire city with it.

when they do pull apart to really catch their breaths, eyes half hooded and torsos heaving, yeonjun swoops in to leave a kiss right on the curve of taehyun's nose.

something in the air shatters.

yeonjun says, "i sort of don't want this night to end."

taehyun hums, still a tad winded. 

and then, "'m afraid that i'll never see you again."

the younger man frowns, brows pinching as he shakes his head once. twice.  _ hard.  _

"we're not kids anymore," he tells him. they're not sending handwritten letters, sticky fingers sealing up envelopes. "we get to choose now. to stay, or disappear."

"hyunie," a warm hand cups his cheek; steady and sure like the wind. "i want to stay."

"i know," taehyun says, because he does.  _ i can read your face; can see the way it spills from your eyes. you've not changed enough for me to be unable to do that. _

his phone chimes again, annoyingly, and he grumbles as he shimmies a bit to fish it out of his pocket. yeonjun rolls off of him but doesn't go far, resting on one elbow as taehyun checks his messages.

**_kai:_ **

_ 1:39am:  _ gyu is drunk already -.-

_ 1: 39am:  _ we're in the kitchen near the punch bowl pls come find us soon

_ 1:40am:  _ missing uuuu

**_beomgyu:_ **

_ 1:49am:  _ has kai always been ths pettry

_ 1:49am:  _ pretty*

_ 1:51am:  _ gonna kiss him!!!

taehyun snorts.

**_kai:_ **

_ 1:58am:  _ gyu is super super drunk 

_ 2:00am:  _ just had to remind him that he has a bf lol

**_beomgyu:_ **

_ 2:03am:  _ i have a boyfriend???? and it's not kai??

something inside of taehyun's body swells, this sort of fondness that he can't place, and he lets his eyes fall shut for a brief second as he drinks in a breath of air, moonlight stirring swirls of blue-green glitter round his lungs.  _ he could be happy.  _ he glances over at yeonjun who is all mussed up hair, and sly smiles, and gentle hands, too, and kisses him so chaste it aches long after he pulls away.  _ yeah,  _ he thinks,  _ he could definitely be happy. _

"i should head back downstairs," he tells him, waving his phone by way of explanation. "my idiot friends need me, i think."

"'s okay," yeonjun shrugs, sitting up. "i've got to find soobin. if he's even still  _ here.  _ he's going to be so mad at me for ditching him."

taehyun smiles small, understanding, and climbs out of the bed. they'll go where they're needed; where the water ebbs and flows.

he's heading towards the door when a hand grabs tight to his elbow, squeezing. 

"let's find our friends and then meet back up afterwards," yeonjun suggests. there's this hopeful glint in his eye, but taehyun doesn't miss the sheepishness masked there too, like he's worried the younger man might say no. "i don't want to say goodbye to you just yet."

"okay," he agrees, nodding. he reaches out to press his fingers against the inside of yeonjun's wrist. feels the pulse thrum beneath his skin. "i want to meet soobin anyway. and i want to introduce you to kai, and gyu. meet you on the front porch in fifteen minutes?"

yeonjun beams, mellowed now, not as urgent as it was at the start of the night, or even a few moments ago. slow-growing.

"alright," he whispers, and then, holding his pinky out like an offer, "promise?"

taehyun stares at it for a beat, blinking fondness from his lashes. these are the kinds of things that matter; the kinds of things that shouldn't be broken, not anymore. not ever again.

ever so carefully, he reaches out and locks their fingers.

_ ("promise.") _

and he means it.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> there is not enough taejun on archive and it makes me so sad! i love their (silly, lovesick, sort of awkward) dynamic with my whole heart. hope u liked!!
> 
> come be friends with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/BE0MKAl)!!


End file.
